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Roughneck (1954)

by Jim Thompson(Favorite Author)

3.74 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0316403814 (ISBN13: 9780316403818)

languge

English

genre

Middle Grade & Children's

publisher

Mulholland Books

review 1: Roughneck, the follow-up to Thompson's Bad Boy (1953), picks up where the first chunk of his autobiography left off by tracing the author's path from hard-scrabble day laborer to paid writer. And just like Bad Boy, Roughneck takes an anecdotal approach, with each chapter acting as a slightly exaggerated Grandpa Simpson-esque tale about getting by during The Great Depression. While some of these stories stretch the limits of credulity, Thompson portrays himself as a compassionate, understanding man who nearly kills himself on a daily basis (with labor and alcohol) just to feed his family -- which stands in stark contrast to the cynical, world-weary tone he usually takes in his novels. Roughneck ends abruptly with the death of Thompson's father, which doesn't give this colle... morection of stories a satisfying ending, but this stopping point provides some insight into just how much this event haunted him (his father died in a sanitarium while Jim was on a bender). Some of the book's stories are hit and miss -- Thompson goes into excessive detail about oil well digging before realizing his audience might not know anything about it -- but Roughneck still shows how much of Thompson's life informed his actual work. I'll be reading Robert Polito's Savage Art next to see how much of Thompson's self-assessment matches up with the actual truth.
review 2: One of my weekly enjoyments is book shopping through the local thrift stores. Every now and then, I will find something good. I haven't found much to sell on Ebay; the competition for those finds are fierce. But it can be rewarding to locate some dusty paperback you've always wanted to read, just never had the time, money or inclination. I really need to actually pull the books out of the pile and start reading The Harrad Experiment, The Sterile Cuckoo, or Death Turns A Smile before they disintegrate.I've always been fan of noir writer Jim Thompson. He came of age in the 1920's and went through the great depression, trying to survive as a writer. Over-looked in his lifetime, Thompson's fame would increase after he died in the early 1970's. Which just goes to show that the best way to make it as a writer is to drop dead. He cranked out a mountain of detective and crime novels for a small paperback company in the 1950's. Some of them, such as The Getaway, were later filmed for the big screen.Thompson's world was the dry plains of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. His characters are corrupt politicians, field tramps, hit men, and desperate people. No one ever gets out intact from a Thompson book, survival is the most they can desire. The Killer Inside Me is narrated by a small town sheriff, who just happens to be a cunning psychotic. The bank robbers of the The Getaway eventually discover there are worse fates than being captured by the law.Roughneck is the second volume of an autobiography. Thompson wrote this one about his adult years. It begins with him in a broken down car trying to take his mother and sister to a relative's house in Oklahoma, his dad's latest oil well schemes having gone bust. The book is depressing, but shows you how someone can survive under the most desperate conditions. Thompson devotes a few chapters to working as bill collector and lets the reader in the trade's secrets.Not the most uplifting book you can read, but a keen view into the world of the depression-era Southwest. less

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